Back to home base. It feels good to be back at Starbucks. Here I compose my thoughts trying to decide which of my conflicted selves I will give voice to. The cappuccino machine roars in the background. Maybe this is as it has to be. We live by the rhythm of the machines which…
Today is Good Friday. I have a few minutes to write before returning to Aunt Clara’s bedside. Yesterday we viewed old photographs together. She remembered the good times, traveling to new places, the trip to Florida with co-workers, the worn 8×10 photo displaying a smiling group, she in the middle, beautiful and appearing eternally…
I have a surreal feeling just typing the title, “Maunday Thursday.” Thursday of Holy Week is supposed to coincide with the last supper when Jesus kept company with his disciples. It is never a pleasant thing to leave this life. Many have no opportunity to sit with friends or family, eating together, and exchanging…
Wednesday morning, bright with sunlight. Enough of the snow is melted to show swaths of leaf-covered ground under the forest pines. Birds and squirrels search the leaf cover with practiced eye. I imagine that food is not easily found at the tail end of winter. In the aftermath of the great fire that destroyed…
I was taken by surprise to hear that Notre Dame Cathedral was burning. Something of such magnificence deserves to exist forever, does it not? My spirit believes that some things ought to be exempt from the erosion of time, and the common accidents that occur during renovations. Was the cause an errant spark, a…
There are times in life, when you just step up to play your part, fulfill your role to the best of your ability, knowing that there has been no rehearsal. Moreover the role is not one that you would’ve happily chosen. We are in Eagle River, Wisconsin for a few days. Laura’s aunt is…
Things all dance themselves: they come and hold out the hand and laugh and flee — and return. Everything goes, everything returns; the wheel of existence rolls eternally. Everything dies, everything blossoms forth again; the year-of-existence eternally runs on. Everything breaks, everything is integrated anew; the same house of existence eternally builds itself. All…
Walking is among the most life-affirming of human activities. It is a way we organize space and organize ourselves to the world at large. It is living proof that repetition – placing one foot in front of another— can in fact allow a person to make meaningful progress. Walking is practically and physically beneficial……
There are times when music is similar to a divine visitation, having a god drop by to have coffee with you. A tune and lyric is moving in a way that you cannot describe. You are told things that you did not know that you knew. This song does it for me. I’ve heard…
Brothers, am I then so cruel? I say that what falls, you should also give a push! Everything of today—falls, de-constructs; who would preserve it! But I, I wish to give it a shove! Recall the joy of rolling a stone over a precipitous edge? The men of today, look how they roll over…
